


Oil

by amanda_jolene



Category: My Mad Fat Diary
Genre: F/M, Gen, Season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-21
Updated: 2014-07-21
Packaged: 2018-02-09 20:41:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1997088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amanda_jolene/pseuds/amanda_jolene
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finn knows a little bit about art.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Oil

**Author's Note:**

> Because I am still no convinced that Liam isn't gay.

Finn knows what the slow burn of anger feels like.

He figures it’s something every male knows. It’s like a hot coal resting in the pit of his stomach, sparking and flaring and burning up his insides until he doesn’t know what to do but lash out because every hit of his fist, every terrible word spit lets the fire out of him until he’s back to himself. 

The first time it happens, he was just a little boy and his mum had left. It had taken him a few weeks to come around to the fact that she wasn’t coming home. The thoughts hits him at breakfast and he send his plate and cup flying, screaming that it wasn’t fair and he hated her. His dad lets him rage, only grabbing hold of him when his tiny fist meets the drywall and then he’s sobbing into his dad’s chest and the pain he feels has nothing to do with the ache in his hand.  
There’s a lot of schoolyard brawls during his younger teen years. Black eyes, busted lips, broke noses- none of them belonging to him and Finn gets a reputation of being an enforcer. Don’t mess with him because he will mess you up. He’s not a bully, doesn’t pick on the weak but everyone knows that there’s something about him that seems a bit dangerous and it draws girls and lighter lads in, makes bullies skirt around him. 

(He spends a summer with his gran and things change because she tells him the worth of a man has nothing to do with how hard he can hit but how much love he can give.)

The first fight he gets in after that isn’t really a fight. Finn already had an odd sensation rolling around in his gut because of the new girl and the fact that she seemed to give less than a fuck about him. He wasn’t used to be so utterly ignored, wasn’t used to girls who used sarcasm as a weapon and when he was nearly asleep (and very honest with himself) he’s afraid Rae is going to disappear out of his life the same way she appeared- unexpectedly and with enough force to knock him down. He figures he should have squared up with Big G, that fucking twat, and made it a little more even but before he can even process what he’s doing, he’s already got the guy by the collar and there’s blood on his mouth. He’s shaking him and spouting off venom and there’s the release, anger gone and he’s sheepish. She’s alright, looks a bit… scared? He reckons he ought to say something to explain his actions but all his heart can hammer out is Tell me who hurts you and I’ll hurt them and he knows it’s weird and not productive so he hunches his shoulders and walks away. 

He can’t be angry when he’s miserable and when they break up, that’s all he is. He mopes around the house and the pub and college. Starts wearing the same fucking jacket all the time (his dad affectionately dubs it the Missing Rae/Let Me Love You Goddamnit jacket and plays Finn “Too Much Time On My Hands” by Styx until Finn finds and hides the album) and is just generally heartsick until his uncle tells him to come out to Leeds. Of course, his dad is against it but he lets him go because he knows Finn will be back. It’s the one thing they have in common- they might run, but they’ll always be back.

And he does. He comes back and they rescue Chloe and while things aren’t perfect with Rae, they feel good enough for him to sleep at night because he knows she’s waiting on him in the morning. She’s shy around him and he doesn’t care for it, but he understands it enough that he knows when to stop touching her, when to give her space and the first time they make love, it’s a game of cat and mouse, nearly an hour to undress, stop and go, but the wait is so worth it that he bites a chunk out of the inside of his cheek to keep himself from crying. 

So he’s not expecting to have that anger creep back on him. It comes suddenly, unexpectedly. Blindsides him when he’s got his beer glass pressed to his mouth. 

He knew about Liam the same way she knew about Olivia. Rae had told him quietly, hands shaking and she had braced herself, ready for the blow of rejection but that wasn’t the sort of boy Finn was. He had kissed her hair and shrugged. “As long as he didn’t force you, it’s not my business, Rae. I don’t own you and we were…” And she knows what he’s trying to say (Finn never says the phrase broke up after that). 

His hands are shaking a bit. There’s no coal, no slow burn. He’s just fucking angry, seeing red and he slams his glass down when Chop says, “She told Iz that prick told her she weren’t an oil painting. The hell does that even mean?” 

Finn is aware that Chop is calling after him but he’s already out the door. His gran was right when she said he didn’t have to hit to be a man but Finn has always been tactile and he figures punching Liam in his stupid fucking face is one of those proclamations of love that Rae needs to hear. It will be silent and harsh and punishing, but it will send a message to all the twats out there who even think of hurting her that you don’t mess with Rae Earl. And if you do, your face will pay. Dearly and severely. 

“You don’t even know where this twat lives, Finn!” Chop tries to reason, puffing after Finn. “And you can’t go askin’ Rae because she’s not gonna tell you and you aren’t supposed to know this! I’m not supposed to know this!” 

(Chop watches Finn drive away and he throws up his hands and yells “Why can’t you people lock it in the fucking vault and keep quiet?”)

Chop was right, he has no idea where Liam lives. But he knows people who does. It takes one stop, a brief conversation and he’s repeating the address over and over in his head. The anger is still there and any time he feels like it might be slipping, he says “You’re not an oil painting” out loud to stir up his ire again. He only does it once and his brain starts conjuring up how devastating that must have been to her. How she had shaken and paused and gripped his hands at every button he had undone on her shirt. Maybe it wasn’t all Liam’s fault, but tonight he would bear the brunt of all Rae’s insecurities. 

He knocks on the door, quick raps because he’s not expending any energy on the door. It swings open and he’s face to face with the biggest prick in all of Lincolnshire. He smirks a little at Finn, keeps chewing his sandwich. “Well, hello there!” 

“Liam, right?” 

“One and only. Been expecting you to come by, actually. All you pretty boys are the same. Mad because your girlfriend sucked someone else’s dick, correct?” 

That anger surges up in him again. “Got nothing to do with that.” 

“What then?” Liam looks bored then. “I didn’t fuck her, if that’s what you’re thinking. Frigid thing, ain’t she?” 

“Do you know who Peter Paul Rubens was?” 

Liam gives him a sarcastic look. “A Backstreet Boy, perhaps?” He taps his fingers nervously on the door frame. “Trick question or something?” 

“If you don’t know who Rubens is then I suggest next time you keep your shit opinions on oil paintings to yourself.”

“Oh shit.” 

Liam doesn’t get backed away, doesn’t close the door fast enough and even though he’s the bigger boy in the situation, he thinks how his mum used to tell him it wasn’t the size of the dog in the fight but the size of the fight in the dog. 

Finn doesn’t hear much of anything besides the sound of his own blood rushing in his ears, the hard pants of his breath. There’s a moment where he thinks Liam is begging him to stop, a moment where he thinks about stopping but Liam lands a punch to his thigh and he’s swinging again. 

But there’s a moment where he hears Liam scream out very clearly. “I’m gay!” 

It stops him. He’s got his fist cocked high in the air, ready to land another crushing blow to Liam’s already bleeding face. There’s blood on his face, on his shirt, on Liam’s face and shirt, the floor beneath them. Finn’s knees are pressing the other boy’s arms to the floor and Liam is crying, tears mixing with blood and snot and salvia and his face is turned to the floor, a mixture of drool and blood coming out of his face. 

“I don’t want to be, but I am. I can’t… it had nothing to do with her. I just didn’t want…” 

“So you’d let a girl believe she wasn’t good enough to, what? Protect yourself from the truth?” But he can’t hit him anymore because Archie hadn’t done that much better than Liam. “You stay away from her, you hear me? Don’t even think about her!” Finn tells him, standing up. “And if I ever see you out with another girl, you’ll get more of them same, do you understand me?”

Liam rolls to his side with a groan, manages a nod, letting his head slump back a little and Finn figures he might actually be knocked out. He’s still raging, though, and has to remind himself that he’s not an animal and Liam got what he deserved. 

But he hadn’t. Not really. Not in Finn’s book. There’s a well of anger deep inside Finn and he knows it’s not all aimed at Liam. It’s pitted against every fucker who has ever given her a cross look, said something out of the way. It’s for every time someone hurt her and she hurt herself in return. Liam deserves a lot but Finn knows he doesn’t deserve that level of punishment, but he’s so unsure of what this level of anger can do that he locks the door from the inside and slams himself out so that he can’t get back in. 

He stays up all night and tries to figure out what song would say what he means and he chooses an embarrassing one and doubts himself all the way to her house. She takes in his bruised knuckles and shakes her head. “What did you do?” 

He shrugs a bit, shuffling nervously. “Nothing. Here.” 

When she puts the song on and sits beside him on the bed, he scoots close and wraps his arms around her, burying his face in her neck because he can face bigger and badder lads than he but he can’t face his girlfriend when he’s using cheesy 80’s music to tell her something grander than his words can explain. It starts playing “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” by The Police and his teeth catch the collar of her shirt to keep from clamping down on his own lip.

She shakes a little, laughs a bit, kisses his head and whispers, “Oh, Finnley.” 

(When the song ends and “He’ll Have To Go” by Nat King Cole starts in, she stops laughing and she’ll put her lips a little closer to his and he’ll mumble that he’s going to learn to paint in oil and she’ll have to be his muse.)


End file.
